"Is this really true, Fritz?"
"Positively true."
There was a long silence; our mounts, Fox and Rappel, tossed their heads at each other as if in the act of saluting one another, scraping up the snow with their hoofs in congratulation upon so pleasant an expedition. Lieverlé opened wide his red mouth, gaping with impatience, extending and bending his long meagre body like a snake, and Sperver sat motionless, his hand still upon his gun.
"Well, let us try and catch her alive. We will put on gloves if we have to touch her, but it is not so easy as you think, Fritz."
And pointing out with extended hand the panorama of mountains which lay unrolled about us like a vast amphitheatre, he added—
"Look! there's the Altenberg, the Schnéeberg, the Oxenhorn, the Rhéthal, the Behrenkopf, and if we only got up a little higher we should see fifty more mountain-tops far away, right into the Palatinate. There are rocks and ravines, passes and valleys, torrents and waterfalls, forests, and more mountains; here beeches, there firs, then oaks, and the old woman has got all that for her camping-ground. She tramps everywhere, and lives in a hole wherever she pleases. She has a sure foot, a keen eye, and can scent you a couple of miles off. How are you going to catch her, then?"
"If it was an easy matter where would be the merit? I should not then have chosen you to take a part in it."
"That is all very fine, Fritz. If we only had one end of her trail, who knows but with courage and perseverance—"
"As for her trail, don't trouble about that; that's my business."
"Yours?"